Lunatic Dawn IITrickless Play Log #03
<< Previous#3 Shoot that poison arrow to my heart
For any chance of me progressing, I needed to strengthen my character. The Training School seems like the only way to build up your stats. It does cost money though, so I went round and did a number of delivery and escort quests. Escort quests have the ‘escortee’ join your party until they arrive at their destination. It’s easy but the pay isn’t all that great.
There were a few things I’ve learnt over the course of doing these quests.
-You cannot accept more than one quest from a single inn, but you can accept quests from other places (e.g. from a different town) at the same time.
-Hero and Famous points are for each city/town, and can be earned by completing quests. (i.e. completing a quest from Oldebroek will only earn Hero and Famous points in Oldebroek). Still not sure what they are for, but most likely related to being able to speak to the King in the castle (or ‘Lord of the Mansion’ in other places) if I get enough points.
Once I earned a fair amount, I stopped by the Training School.
Here are the things you can develop :
Each session was around 300G, and took 7-10 days. I mostly worked on strength which helped with increasing the max HP.
As soon as I felt ready, I went and looked for a slightly harder mission. There was a retrieval quest which didn’t look too bad.
I recruited someone to give me an extra hand, but the only adventurer available was a halfling who called himself Erlom the Fool (間抜けなエルロム). Not the most glorious of titles, but at least his thievery and dodge stats were good.
I stocked up on various items and headed out. I knew there was a town called Delmont (デルモント) in the south east from a previous quest I did, so I made a stop there and restocked. The underground arena was slightly further south from there.
Dungeon time! Unlike the first game, everything here is isometric view. Movement can be done using either the numberpad or the mouse (by clicking in the direction you want to move). Enemies can be seen, and going near them will trigger a battle. The movement is turn based, so enemies will only move when you move. There is also a timer to show how long you’ve been in the dungeon. You use up your oil lamp when exploring dungeons, just like in the first game.
I got into a few battles which weren’t difficult, but one of my characters (Kalbirim) had gotten himself poisoned.
Status effects remain even after battle, and Kalbirim was taking poison damage after every few steps. Unfortunately I didn’t have any magic or items that could cure it. There was an item called Poison Block (ポイズン・ブロック) that could have been bought from the Magic Shop earlier, but I didn’t think of stocking up on any at the time (bad mistake...). I carried on, hoping he would come out alive at the end of all this. The dungeon itself was straightforward, and I eventually arrived at what looked like an important spot.
And went straight into a fight.
It wasn’t hard, but having a poisoned character made it a bit more tricky than it should. With the enemy defeated, all that’s left doing was to open the chest. Before I did that, I configured the ‘Unlocking Settings’ (鍵開け設定) which can be accessed via the Party menu.
Quite self explanatory. You can choose one of the party members to open chests. You can either use a key (Which can be bought from an item shop), or rely on the character’s skill (The higher the thievery skill, the better chance of unlocking). I didn't want to waste a key so I used Erlom to open the chest with his skill as he had the highest thievery stat. When he opened the chest there was a surprise …
I took some damage but luckily it wasn’t enough to kill me.
I finally gotten my hands on the item I was looking for, so it was time to leave. There were a few fights as I made my way out, and Lord Fudge also got poisoned during one encounter. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but it turned out to be a crucial moment.
I managed to get myself back onto the world map. Victory was in sight, but as soon as I took a couple of steps…
What the…
I died from the poison almost instantly. How can this be? It wasn’t much of a problem before, but then I realised: the time flow is different between a dungeon and world map. A few steps inside a dungeon is equivalent to a few minutes, and a few steps on the world map is equivalent to a day. Which means I had been taking poison damage for at least 12 (in-game world) hours, which is plenty enough to kill.
I did actually save just before I died, but that didn't help as my character was already poisoned by then. Camping doesn't cure it either, and without the right item or magic I was practically at a dead end. The only thing I can do is load an older save game.
Pro tip: Poison sucks. Stock up on items that can cure it, or have someone that can cure it with magic.
